Conversation III: A Mother's Legacy
Obi-Wan was meditating before he retired for the night when he felt his apprentice approaching through the Force. Anakin left waves in the Force that worried his former master. The abrupt and rapid knock made Obi-Wan jump even though he knew it was coming. He hesitated for a moment at the door, collecting himself. He and Anakin had not spoken except in necessity since their conversation on the Star Cruiser. Obi-Wan opened the door, unsure of what exactly to expect.
Anakin's shoulders were hunched, his eyes were red rimmed and his hair was tangled. He held his lightsaber in his hands gingerly, almost reverently.
"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Master," Anakin's voice was softer than usual, resigned. "I—" He hand trouble getting the words out so he simply raised the lightsaber, offering it to Obi-Wan. Slightly dumbstruck and at a loss Obi-Wan took the familiar weapon.
"I'm leaving the Order."
"What?" Obi-Wan nearly dropped the lightsaber which was suddenly too heavy in his hand. "Anakin!"
"Don't try to talk me out of it, Master."
"I—I wouldn't… Why?" Obi-Wan was still holding the lightsaber outstretched, unaccepting. "If this is about Padme, Anakin, at least talk to me—"
"It's not." Anakin said quickly and wrung his hands together, looking down at the saber with remorse, for what Obi-Wan couldn't tell. "I've… done things, Master, things that can not be forgiven and… I can't stay."
"Anakin, please."
"Don't, Master."
"Anakin. At least talk to me about this before you take it to the Council."
"I—I don't know if I can, Master."
"I promise that what ever you say will stay between us and afterward I will support you, no mater what you choose." Anakin seemed to be swayed by his words and wavered, eyes darting between the end of the hall, Obi-Wan and the lightsaber in his former Master's hand.
"Not here," Anakin said finally, defeated.
"Fair enough," Obi-Wan accepted with a nod. He clipped his own lightsaber to his belt and slipped Anakin's into his robes before they left.
.
Dex's Diner was closed at that time of night, but the Force was something of a universal key. Obi-Wan and Anakin entered just as Hermione was pulling on her jacket.
"I thought I locked that," she said and came out of the kitchen. "We're closed," She started to say before catching sight of the Jedi robes.
"Dex! There are two Jedi here to see you."
"Jedi?" The four armed baslisk came around behind her, rubbing one pair of hands on his dirty apron and using the other to pull up his pants. "Obi-Wan!" The cook cried happily when he caught sight of the bearded Jedi. "You here with a good story or just for the cooking? The stoves still cooling down, I'll get it back up in a minute. And you brought little Ani, not so little anymore."
"I'll leave this one to you, Dex," Hermione said with an exhausted expression.
"Of course, go home, see you tomorrow," He called to the waitress.
"Just food and a quiet place to talk tonight, Dex," Obi-Wan told his old friend.
"You're always welcome here," the baslisk said. "I'll get you some steaks and wedges before I head out."
"Thank you, Dex."
Obi-Wan and Anakin went to a both by the large front windows and sat on opposite sides in silence. Obi-Wan pulled out the lightsaber he'd been given and placed it between them on the table off to the side.
They were still sitting quietly, Obi-Wan stroking his beard and Anakin inspecting his fingernails when Dex came out with their food. The cook looked over the two somber faces and the weapon on the table.
"Oh no. I smell trouble a-brewin'. Anything I should be worried about?" He asked. Obi-Wan gave him a look that said, your guess is as good as mine, while Anakin remained downcast and silent. Dex just nodded, whiskers bristling. "Well you two stay as long as you need, just lock up when you leave. I trust you can manage that."
"We will, Dex," Obi-Wan assured him, "Thank you."
"No need for thanks. I'd do it for any of my friends… well perhaps not any but most. Night Obi, Ani." The baslisk lumbered back to the kitchen and the sound of the back door closing followed soon after, leaving Anakin and Obi-Wan alone in the small diner. It seemed eerily bright with only the front lights on, the kitchen a dark hole behind them and the windows rising high and dark around them, reflecting back the empty booths and stools.
Obi-Wan nibbled at his food and waited for Anakin to start talking.
"Aren't you going to ask something?" Anakin finally spoke.
"I wouldn't have the slightest clue where to begin."
Anakin nodded despondently. He swallowed then began. Obi-Wan set aside his food giving his student his full attention.
"You remember when I was having dreams… about my mother?" Anakin asked.
"Yes."
"And they weren't dreams at all."
"Yes," Obi-Wan said, his words heavy.
"I went back to tattoine with Padme to save her."
"I know and you were too late."
Anakin shook his head. "I wasn't. I found her, tied to a rack, beaten and dying. I cut her down and she died, right there in my arms." Obi-Wan couldn't breath, trying not to imagine what that must have been like and yet feeling in the Force all around him the anguish his student was feeling as acutely as if it was his own. Anakin shook his head and looked away.
"She was so happy to see me in those last moments. She looked up at me and said I'd grown, that she was proud of me… and then she died." Obi-Wan felt dread in his stomach even before Anakin went on. "And so I—I killed them. All of them. The whole camp of murdering vile filth like they were animals." Anakin's shoulders were shuddering. "And I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel anything but anger because she was dead."
Obi-Wan's hands were shaking and sweaty. The lightsaber on his belt was suddenly too heavy. He didn't think he could have lifted it if he'd needed to.
"You were right," Anakin said, his voice hopeless and filled with grief. "You were always better than me and I was too stupidly selfish to see it. I killed them without thinking of her, I killed them in her name and it would have broken her heart. I turned her legacy into something filled with blood and death and…" Anakin just shook his head shoulders shaking. "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan. I failed you. I failed her. I have never been the Jedi you think I am and I never will be. That's why I can't stay, not because I love Padme but because… because I have broken the Code in way that is unforgivable. I'm sorry."
Obi-Wan sat back, mind reeling. Many thing suddenly made sense to him. Many of them were his own failures and they cut deeply, stabs of pain that jerked him back to the reality, sitting in silence across the laminate table from his crying apprentice.
"No, Anakin," He whispered into the stagnant silence, "I'm sorry."
"What?" Anakin raised his head, confused.
"I've failed you as a teacher. I was too young to be your Master and I realize that now. I should have seen your dreams for what they were instead of dismissing your powers. I did not want to admit just how strong you were with the Force, afraid that it would go to your head and in doing so I ignored your mother's need. Perhaps if I had not been blinded by my own judgments of you we could have saved her together. I failed you then and failed to prepare you for losing her as you did. I'm sorry, Anakin."
"You-you aren't angry?"
"Angry?" Obi-Wan tried to find words for the torrent of emotions that swept over him. "No. Saddened that you have had to bear this for so long, disappointed in myself and the Order that we allowed this and did not see it, worried for you, your wife and both of your futures… but no, Anakin, I am not angry."
Anakin could only stare and his Master, blinking.
"I don't think that leaving the Order is the right response though," Obi-Wan said at length.
"H-How can you say that? I have dishonored the code—"
"Leaving the Order won't change that. It won't ease the guilt you feel, and it won't make you into someone else." Obi-Wan shook his head. "Anakin, you are proof that the Council and the Order has gone astray. I believe that now more than ever." Obi-Wan sighed and looked over at Anakin's lightsaber, lying inauspiciously on the table between shakers and plastic menus.
"I promised I would stand my your decision, no mater what you chose and I will. What you have said tonight, like your relationship with Padme will remain between us unless you wish otherwise." Obi-Wan pushed away his plate of half eaten food. He stood, stiff and weary.
"I think you can change the Order," Obi-Wan said to the empty Diner, "I believe Qui-Gon was right, you are the Chosen One and one way or another you will bring balance to the Force, which means that the Jedi will have to change." He put a hand on Anakin's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "If you still want to leave the Order tomorrow morning, leave your lightsaber outside my door and I will tell the Council."
Obi-Wan walked with heavy feet to the door. It was then his turn to pause, turn back and say with a heavy heart, bitter with remorse, "I'm so sorry, Anakin." The bell above the door jingled with a dissonantly cheerful noise and Obi-Wan was gone.
Conversation III (and a half): A Kiss
"Obi-Wan are you listening to me?" Satine asked as they strode between the soaring pillars of the Senate building.
"What?" the Jedi's head jerked at his name and he looked up at her quickly, "I'm sorry Satine."
The blonde woman smiled serenely, "You've been distracted all morning. Will you tell me what's wrong or brush it off as the war again?" She asked, perceptive blue eyes never leaving his.
Obi-Wan's resistance crumbled. "It's nothing," he said at first, the lie apparent. "Alright, it's Anakin, and the Council, and… They just have me thinking…" the words tumbled out, "what if… what if everything that I have dedicated my life to is wrong?"
"Obi-Wan," Satine breathed, her brow furrowed in worry. But he had to go on now that he'd started.
"What if we were better off committing ourselves to our love instead of locking away our hearts and returning to our perceived duties?" He said, eyes on her. They had come to a stop, standing in the grand walkway, dwarfed by the architecture.
"Do you really think that Obi-Wan?" She asked, voice sounding small, "Do you really believe you have wasted your life in service to the Jedi Order?"
"No," Obi-Wan shook his head, thinking of the faces of the Togrutan colonists he'd help save from slavery, "not entirely. I'm just starting to see that the Council are wrong more often then I was willing to believe."
"Everything will change, Obi-Wan, over time." Her voice held a bitter reminder that the former Duchess knew this from experience.
"Yes," he agreed. "But change is never easy, we more than others know that."
"All too well," She nodded.
"My apologies for burdening you with this, you have your own problems to worry about." He straightened his shoulders, adopting his usual formal demeanor again.
"Not at all," She shook her head, short blond hair twisting around her ears in the movement. "That was the closest you've ever come to saying you loved me, Obi. You never need apologize for that." There was a small but beautiful smile on her lips that reached his heart past the locks he'd placed around it.
Silently Obi-Wan took her hand and bent to place a kiss to the back of her fingertips. She felt the warmth of his lips and his beard bristling against her skin. The moment was small and personal even in the large public space. In a moment she would have to be the deposed Duchess again, advocating for a people that no longer recognized her but for now she was the young woman in love looking into the eyes of the young man who might one day love her too.
"I will leave you to your duties," Obi-Wan said as he let her hand slip away. "It was a pleasure walking with you, Lady Satine."
"Thank you, General Kenobi." She nodded to him and turned away, that small smile still tugging at her lips.
